Distributed systems and applications have become ubiquitous. One method of communication between components of a distributed system or distributed application is to use Integrated Services Digital Network/System Signaling 7 (ISDN/SS7) signaling. An example of this may be a Contact Center, wherein ISDN/SS7 is used to communicate between an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system and a Private Branch Exchange (PBX). On the public switched telephone network (PSTN), Signaling System 7 (SS7) is a system that puts the information required to set up and manage telephone calls in a separate network rather than within the same network that the telephone call is made on. Signaling information is in the form of digital packets. SS7 and ISDN use out-of-band signaling, meaning that signaling (control) information travels on a separate channel rather than within the same channel as the telephone call.
An SS7 communication includes a User-to-User Information (UUI) field. The UUI contains one field of up to 96 characters. Conventional systems use this UUI field to send data between servers/applications systems. This field may be used to pass fixed format data between components of a distributed system or application. For example, a credit card application might transfer a 16-digit account number, or a human resource application might transfer a caller's name. In such a scenario, the sending application must be aware of the receiving application's data requirements, and send the appropriate data. For an outsourcer this means that the sending application needs to be customized for each customer's needs.